Sweet Home Mississippi (Part 1)

Ted Grover peered through the windshield of his aging Volvo down the long straight road ahead. He had been driving the old car since six thirty in the morning and his eyes were growing somewhat weary as he neared the approach to the California desert. It was a long way to Weazleville, Mississippi, which he would reach on the fourth day of his trip and he dreaded the descent into the moist heat, the super steamed cauldron of the bug infested, chemically saturated, Mississippi Delta. Meanwhile he would enjoy the cool, clear, mountain air for the next couple of days until the inevitable steam bath would overtake and drag him under. His lungs would begin to burn before he reached his destination. Better to travel than to arrive the sage said. Thats no shit when it comes to Mississippi. Especially if the destination was the Delta. The market solves eveything. Sure, even if it put him in the grave, making a living. That would solve everything for him. It would be his second year of University teaching, having done a one-year haul at the University of South Carolina. Given the market, a man took what he could get, grasping at every straw, and that was what had come his way, after pounding the pavement for teaching jobs since winding up his doctorate in California. It had taken two years to land that first full time job, although it was only a one year instructor position. Meanwhile, he pieced together an income working in the registrar’s office at the university, when there was a need, and teaching a one quarter course in Democratic Theory when the visiting instructor from back east fell ill and cancelled out. Then the break came at the end of the summer. The phone rang in late afternoon and he was offered a one year job.The department in South Carolina had been left in the lurch when